Awakened Potential
by Vaneria Potter
Summary: I can feel them, Buffy. All over. Slayers are awakening everywhere. Set just after the end of Season 7. What happened to the Awakened Potentials.
1. Chapter One: Awakened

_Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Isn't it obvious?_

_Summary: "I can Feel them Buffy. All over. Slayers are Awakening everywhere." Set after "Chosen" in Season Seven. What happened to the Awakened Potentials._

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Realized Potential **

**Chapter One: Awakened.**

"_I say we change the rule. I say we let MY power, become OUR power. Willow will use the essence of the Scythe to change our destinies. From now on, every girl who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who might have the power, will have the power. All who can stand up, will stand up. Slayers. All of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?_

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Demetra Raven stepped up to the bat, just a few shades short of terrified. 

Every time she had been everyone's last choice. The last to bat, the first to screw up. Now it was the last inning of the baseball game, they were one point behind, and she was sure that she would be the one to lose the game, or at best tie it.

She stood at the base, then was suddenly overcome by a dizzy spell, and could swear she heard a voice inside her head. It was a woman's voice, speaking not only to her, but to thousands of others. Demetra felt a great surge of strength and confidence as a radiant smile replaced the uncertain expression on her face.

She was _more_ than the scared, klutzy girl that everyone thought she was! Every sense was heightened, she _was_ capable of winning, and she would do so! Demetra swung the bat, and then she was running, faster than she ever had in her life. Then the next thing she knew, blood was singing through her veins in a ringing melody of joy and victory as she was engulfed in a shrieking tangle of bodies. They had Won!

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She should have known that it was all too good to last. 

The sun had slipped behind some low-lying clouds and night had started to fall. Demetra was floating on her own personal cloud when gravity remembered to exist in the form of a fanged monstrosity straight out of a nightmare.

Everyone was running, screaming, but Demetra paused. Somehow she knew, this was what she had been born to be.

Combat moves that she had never even heard of flowed through her mind. This was what her life would be, a Protector, a warrior against the darkness.

Demetra dodged the first punch, blocked the second, then hit the nightmare as hard as possible with the third. The fight continued in this way until Demetra spotted a wooden baseball bat, discarded in the panic.

She knocked the monster back, and grabbed it, breaking it in half over her knee and ramming the splintered end into the monster's chest and straight into it's heart. Somehow, it promptly collapsed into dust.

Demetra dropped the now ruined bat and turned to look at the people who hadn't run away. They looked back at her, their faces a mix of awe, surprise and terror.

Demetra cast her eyes around frantically, desperately searching for a familiar or friendly face amid the expressions of fear and mistrust. Finding none, she turned and ran before she could burst into tears. She wasn't even in high school and she was already labelled as a freak for the rest of her life.

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She ran and ran and ran, until she had reached the little glade in the forest near her house. Then she sat underneath a tree, and let the tears come. How much time passed, Demetra had no idea, until she heard the sound of people approaching. 

It turned out to be two men; a middle-aged man with a British accent and one with an eye patch in his mid-twenties, and three woman, a blonde, a brunette and a red-head, all roughly the same age as the younger man.

Demetra watched them with a wary eye as they approached, the blonde woman leaning down to offer a hand up, introducing herself as 'Buffy' and sounding disturbingly like the voice she remembered in her head.

Demetra accepted the hand, scrambling to her feet and dusting herself off. She stared around at the newcomers. "I don't mean to be rude, but who are you, why are you here, and how did you find me? I thought I was the only one who came here."

The red-head answered her first question. "I'm Willow, the brunette is Kennedy, Buffy already introduced herself, the older guy is Giles and the one with the eye patch is Xander."

Xander grinned. "And we found you because a witch cast a few spells to make a magic little birdie whisper in our ears."

Buffy frowned at him. "Xander." She turned back to Demetra. "Actually, those questions are something we should talk about, and I'm sure you want an explanation about what happened at the ball game, but it should probably wait until we're not in the middle of the woods, especially since it isafter dark. Shall we go?"

Giles chose this moment to join the conversation. "Oh, yes, Kennedy, tell the other's please, we'll meet you at the van. Demetra, was it," he waited for her nod, "can you take us back to your house? I suppose your family should hear the story as well."

Demetra nodded, still in a state of mild shock as Buffy lead the way out of the woods. Trusting them instinctively, if only because they knew about what had happened at the game and seemed to understand and almost sympathise with it, Demetra gave directions to her house. She was emotionally drained and just wanted to know what was going on. If they could explain, that would be great. If they were trying to kidnap her, then her new skills from the game could probably give her enough time to run.

Demetra closed her eyes and leaned against Buffy's shoulder, closing her eyes for an exhausted nap on the way home.

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Author's Note - OK, this is my first venture into the realm of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you like it or want to point out any mistakes or room for improvement, reviews are very much appreciated. I am not sure if the UberVamps from season 7 could survive in the sun, and that season is at my dad's house in America so it will be a few months before I can check. Try to bear with me please. _

_Thanks to any potential (no pun) readers,_

_Nathalia._


	2. Chapter 2: Explanations

_Disclaimer: Do we really have to go over this every single time? If I owned Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I wouldn't be sitting at my computer writing fanfiction. Sue me and get the seventeen dollars left in my bank account and a minor rant on how my boss is a cheap bitch._

_Summary: See previous chapter.

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**Chapter Two: Explanation.**

The first thing Demetra heard as she walked in the door was an unanimous demand for an explanation. Where had she been? Who were the people with her? What had happened at the Baseball game.

Demetra sighed. Considering her family had not even been at the game, not wanting to see another failure, word had obviously travelled fast.

Mr. Giles gave a brief round of introductions, then suggested that they move into the living room, as the explanation was likely to take a very long time.

Demetra could practically _feel _the tension in the air as Willow and Mr. Giles started to explain things to her family. Unconsciously, Demetra resumed her position from the van, leaning against Buffy, who gave her an understanding smile, looking almost sympathetic. She turned her attention back to what Willow was saying.

"The first thing you have to understand is that magic is real, and that things that go bump in the night do tend to exist. The creature that Demetra fought at the ball game today was a vampire, one of the remains of an army of, well, super-vamps that we recently destroyed."

Mr. Giles took over at this point, and went on to explain in more detail about vampires and other demons and how to recognise and/or kill them.

Demetra was drinking in all this new knowledge when her mother interrupted. "This is all very nice and I won't ask how you know all of it, but what does any of this have to do with Demetra? And why are you telling us this? How are we involved?"

At this point, Buffy spoke up, apparently quoting something. " 'In each generation there is a Chosen One, she alone with stand against the Vampires, the Demons and the Forces of Darkness. She is the Slayer.' " Through the entire speech, Buffy never stopped looking directly at Demetra, and now turned to her family. "The Slayer is basically the line of defence between the normal world, and the various demons and other nasties bent on world domination. Until recently, that meant that there was one girl, The Slayer, and many potential slayers, one of whom would take the current Slayer's place when she fell, and so on."

Here, Mr. Giles took over again. "A few weeks ago, the Potential Slayers banded with the then-current Slayer, Buffy, to defeat an enemy known as The First. To have any chance of success, we were forced to do something rather unorthodox. The First was too powerful to be defeated by any one Slayer, regardless of backup. During the battle, it was necessary to cast a spell that awakened all of the potential slayers, all over the world. It awakened all the abilities that would normally be dormant until a Potential was Called to take the mantle of the Slayer."

All through this, Demetra's head had been spinning. Finally, several things clicked, and she looked up at Buffy. "I wasn't imagining things, was I? The voice in my head, it was you wasn't it? You were speaking to all the Potentials when you said those things."

Demetra's father broke in before any of them could answer. "What voice in your head? Saying what? Do you need to see a doctor of some sort?"

Normally, something like this would had subdued Demetra, but not any more. She looked directly at her parents, refusing to be cowed. "The voice that said that 'from now on, every girl who might be a slayer, will be a slayer." She looked back at Buffy, repeating her question, "It was you, wasn't it?"

Buffy looked faintly embarrassed. "Pep talk before the battle, yeah. You heard that?"

Demetra nodded, Buffy winced slightly as she turned back to Demetra's family and continued the story. "Essentially, that spell made Demetra a Slayer. But when push comes to shove, a Slayer's power is just that. Power. On it's own, that's not enough. Like all power, it has to be trained. Now that Demetra is a Slayer, Vampire's and Demons will come after her. The Slayer has to be trained if she wants to stay alive. That's why we have been looking for all the Potentials who have been awakened, to take them to a school and train them." Buffy turned back to Demetra, "I'm sorry, and I know that it's a burden, but it's who you are. Who we are. But now it's a burden we share. Come and learn, and you won't have to carry it alone."

Mr. Giles took over again. "I realize that this is a lot to take in, and that you will probably need time to think it over. We are staying at the Motel, so feel free to contact us."

The group stood up, with Demetra's older sister recovering enough to show them to the door.

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For a long while the family sat in silence, the implications of the recent conversation running through each of their minds. Finally, Demetra broke the silence. "I want to go."

Predictably, this sparked off a multitude of protests from everyone else, mainly boiling down to 'Absolutely not!'.

Days ago, this would have made Demetra drop the issue, but now, she only waited until they had finally died down. When the room was quiet again, Demetra continued. "You know it makes sense. Out of the entire world, what are the odds that that vampire _just happened_ to show up at my game celebration? Considering how fast the news travelled, how long do you think it will be before something else comes after me?"

Her family were not about to budge. Knowing that her family was nothing if not image conscious, Demetra laid out her trump card. "With the amount of people who were at the game, how long do you think it will take before they start calling _all_ of us freaks? If I go away, just for a while, everything will blow over in a few months and you'll be normal again."

As she had predicted, it worked. Her father frowned, "Very well, but I still don't like it. Tomorrow, you may tell those people that you have permission to attend their '_school_ '. For now, I think we all need some time to let all of this sink in."

That effectively ended any further conversation for the night, and Demetra rushed upstairs to change for bed.

Tomorrow, she would take her first steps on a path to her new life.

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A/N - Second chapter up and I hope everyone enjoys. Again, this is my first attempt at the Buffy-verse so any constructive critisism would be much appreciated._

Did you know that this story has 57 hits but only2 reviews? that's about 1 out of 30 people reviewing! Come on, people, just click on that little button on the bottom-left corner and tell me what you think!

_Thanks, Nathalia._


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